I thought this story did a very good job of portraying Saito when compared to other FoZ fanfics but the only thing I have a gripe with is the author's plan to strengthen Saito. Rather than Martial Arts or secret techniques, we could have had a better Derf. Since he can absorb Magic it can be assumed that when Saito stabbed Kokabial derf could have absorbed the magic that made up his body as a Magical creature. and this could have worked on Riser to remove his regeneration. It could also give him power boosts through sacred Gears since they were made by God they are magical constructs, like tools so he could have absorbed a sacred Gear from someone and it ould have added its effects to Derfinger. Like if he absorbed Twilight Healing Derf would have gained healing powers because he absorbed the magical tool. I could also give him the ability to learn how to make sacred gears because of the fact that Gandalfr lets him understand the mechanisms that allow a weapon to do what it does.

I like this one...
This grittier version of Saito’s year in that dimension makes this 1000x more realistic than that Anime that glorifies double standards, royal superiority, S&M undertones and stockholm syndrome.
Here he feels like a Character, an Actual Human Being who literally went through 2 Hells to get where he is now.
He blends in with the rest of the characters almost perfectly. And his powers are OP in an awesome way.
Congratulations man, you earned it...
I especially love how Issei feels completely secondary in this story compared to him (even Saito’s house is the one turned into a base).

Ugh. It's thematic and all, but I was really hoping for a human against the world scenario rather than X-Crossover character joins Rias' Peerage.

saito growth potential is as you said the lowest of them all but his fighting prowess is unlimited already, isn't his ability to use any weapons man-made or not right? In that civilize modern world your really limiting his potential by only making him use sword it is a waste of abilities and skills, because first of all his world is where the age of gods is still present, so if he use the power and connection of gremory family he can kind of make them find him a sword of legendary heroes and use them as it is, because its not like the only weapon he can use are the ordinary one derflinger for example.. Also his power potential may become stagnant in growth but in terms of versality and variety he beat them all he can become an expert in all kinds of weaponry so what i say is that your limiting his capabilityies by only making him use derflinger or a sword only.

Wonderful series! I hope you continue it one day! I loved your characterization of Saito and his reactions of 'stripping the veil of comedy' from his time in the Halkeginia. It really made the story excellent in my book. I really hope you're still out there and will one day return to writing this. Following and Faving!

Though I feel the whole "I'm a devil scene could've been handled better... why must a good number of good fics like these be left for dead? -_-

I like your version of Saito better than the canon version

I can't help the feeling that you wanted to get your cake and eat it too, a pawn piece should have never been able to resurrect the Gandalfr

one day one day i will come back to read this story and see a update i still live in hope

Its a good story... But I feel that Saito is such a pussy! I find myself rolling my eyes literally every five seconds. What the heck is he doing. literally everything he is doing is completely retarded

Yeah, no. Saito is just too stupid for me to read this, despite the relatively interesting premise. First he went directly from betrayed, left for dead, and pissed about all the manipulations he's faced to "this girl who claims to be something I didn't think exists in a place I thought she shouldn't be sure seems trustworthy! Lets tell her my entire story and blindly trust everything she says without any confirmation whatsoever until directly proven otherwise!" literally in the gap between two paragraphs. Even if she wasn't obviously a villain who had bad things in mind from his perspective, I still criticize this bipolar character shift. Then he fought nonlethally with an obvious psychopath who he hates, knows is murderous, and is in fact actively trying to kill him, despite not being a stranger to killing and having no particular ties of loyalty to the man. TWICE. That just smacks of you keeping him alive because of plot by handing Saito an idiot ball. Then he waded into melee with dozens of opponents during an extremely time sensitive crisis when he had a freaking GUN with unlimited ammo in his pocket. I can understand the logic behind superhumans not using guns because they're not as effective against other superhumans, but those exorcists were at best slightly more durable than average humans. No matter how fast being the Gandalfr makes him, if he was fast enough to outrun bullets he wouldn't need to have that whole battle in the first place. He's got impeccable accuracy, superhuman speed and a mastery of gunplay; if he can't put down more people faster with a gun than a sword, I'd call bullshit. Finally, he confronts Raynere, absolutely intent on killing her, slashes her across the stomach only to find she can heal immediately, and what does he do? He doesn't try sticking his magic eating sword into her somewhere important and leave it there so she can't heal over it, or cut off some limbs to test the limits of her ability, or even attack anywhere she might not be able to casually heal like her brain, no, instead he proceeds to use the time when she's just letting him wail on her to do the SAME THING, over and over again, hoping it will somehow do better the next time. This might not be the ACTUAL definition of insanity, but plenty of people will agree that it's insanely stupid(speaking of idiocy, but in a different area this time, how exactly did Raynere just stand there and look down on him while he was cutting the crap out of her, but wail in pain and get distracted every subsequent time she was hit? That's just a difference in effect that makes zero sense.). He even confirms that she can't actually do anything about a sword stuck in her, and all he does is saw it in and out of somewhere unimportant like a fumbling virgin rather than trying to do something actually effective with it. I can't say if all of those things are character breaking or not, because it's not like they're all unrealistic, but I personally just can't stand idiotic protagonists being idiots and failing at everything because of it.

But even if I could forgive all of that*, what I really can't stand is that you introduced a new character into the plot, had him positioned perfectly to impact things meaningfully, and then in a wonder of planning had him change absolutely nothing about the outcome except the fact that he was there. Scenes played out exactly as in cannon, with no consequences outside of it. Freed still lived, Asia still died, Issei still came in to save the day only to watch his failure just as he arrived, Raynere still beat everyone present miserably until issei woke up Boosted Gear to wreck her shit. The impact of Hiraga Saito is negligible, and Issei is still obviously the protagonist of this story. That's unacceptable. You should be writing fanfiction because you want to explore the possibilities of things that didn't happen, not passively observing things that did from a slightly different perspective.

*(I can't; Main characters that do things that are obviously wrong or completely nonsensical -like, say, avoiding obvious opportunities to do better for no discernible reason or failing to take advantage of some ability they have than can solve the current problem for no reason(even when it wouldn't actually change the overall outcome, it still drives me to distraction that they're being ineffective when they can do otherwise)- will ruin literally any story for me, no matter how good it is otherwise or how long I've been reading it, because instead of being interested in the story all I can think about is how stupid it was. Still, that's a personal problem, so not necessarily a flaw in your writing)

So why did he leave Freed alive when he was willing to kill the other corrupted priests?

I really hate it when people are so merciful to the head villains but decide to kill all the goons. Like TF. Freed was at least shown to be a monster. Why does he deserve to live more than the random fallen exorcisms who got in his way?

This was actually pretty damn amazing. I love the alternative interpretation of Saito and how the plot is played straight. The fight narration is incredible. Character development was progressing smoothly.

There should've been at least one scene where Issei's pov was used, but considering the "shonen'ness" of his character would clash heavily with the tone of the story, it can be forgiven. I wouldn't go so far as to say he was demoted to extra, but the argument can definitely be made.

I sincerely wish the author chose to continue this story.

I liked this chapter but the eighth pawn was a cop out. You should have used a knight

seria bueno que rias gremori y Louise se enfrentaran en batalla